NEW DELHI: As Delhi gets ready to cut the number of private cars on its roads by about half to rein in pollution, taxi companies and aggregators such as Uber, Ola and Meru Cabs are working out how best to take advantage of the resulting business opportunity.

Alongside this, the Delhi government is readying an action plan to increase bus, autorickshaw and Delhi Metro capacity to accommodate the overflow.

Uber plans to launch car pooling in Delhi for private and commercial vehicles. While UberPool in Bangalore is only for commercial vehicles, the service in Delhi is being targeted at 28 lakh private car owners ahead of the start of the Delhi government's odd-even plan.

Meru will launch a mobile application in January to help passengers pool cabs. "The app will identify two people within a radius of two-three km travelling in the same direction and can share their taxi ride," said CEO Siddhartha Pahwa.

"The driver will pick one person first and within 10 minutes will also pick up the second person."

Taxi aggregator Ola recently launched minibus shuttle services in Gurgaon and Noida and could extend this to Delhi. Its taxi-sharing app is in beta testing in Bengaluru and could be rolled out in the National Capital Region.

"Delhi is on the company's radar," a spokesperson told ET. Bengaluru customers use Ola Share at an introductory fare of Rs 50 for any number of rides. Ola has about 60,000 vehicles on its roster in Delhi, 16,000 of them autorickshaws.

One of the world's most heavily polluted cities, Delhi plans to launch the odd-even scheme on January 1 for a 15-day test period between 8 am and 8 pm, Monday to Saturday. Odd-numbered cars run on odd dates and those with even numbers on even dates.

Critically, home minister Rajnath Singh pledged support for the plan at a meeting with Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal. That means Delhi Police, under central government control, is on board to implement the plan, which has drawn criticism over lack of adequate public transport capacity to absorb the excess.

The Supreme Court won't intervene in the matter, chief justice TS Thakur said Wednesday. He backed the odd-even plan but said that the strategy needed to be multi-pronged.

"It (pollution) is earning Delhi a bad name internationally," Thakur said. "The government must consult all stakeholders and prepare a common acceptable programme." Meru is expecting a surge in demand of more than 30% for taxis during the test period.

As an incentive for ride sharing, it will be offering a 35% discount. In case a passenger can't find someone to share the ride, the person will still get the discount, Meru said.

Ola was more general with regard to its plans, pointing out that one of its aims was to obviate the need for individual car ownership.

"Through sustainable transportation initiatives like pioneering CNG (compressed natural gas) adoption in the state, introduction of a wide range of options like cabs, autos, shuttle and more on the Ola app for consumers and lowest ETAs (estimated times of arrival) anywhere in the state, we strive to take away the need to own a car for millions of our consumers," Ola said.

All the demand within Delhi is met using CNG vehicles, "as per the law of the land," Ola said. It also incentivises drivers to acquire vehicles powered by CNG, which that burns more cleanly than petrol or diesel.

To be sure, aggregators seem to be operating in a grey area in the capital. They have applied for licences to operate and are running services even though a ban is said to be in place. Taxi companies and aggregators are also looking at carpooling apps. Meru's app for this will conform to the odd-even rule, it said.

Rental company Carzonrent said it will deliver vehicles from its self-drive Myles-Cars unit to the homes of users, while its taxi division Easycabs will promote sharing of vehicles.

"We would want to encourage customers to share their rides through our cabs and cabs will be more widely available across the city," said Sakshi Vij, founder and CEO, MylesCars.

Fleet owners and taxi aggregators met members of the Delhi Dialogue Commission (DDC), the think tank of the Delhi government, to discuss a carpooling policy.

Prices of most SUVs were cut between Rs 1.1 lakh and Rs 3 lakh following the implementation of GST, which subsumed over a dozen central and state levies like excise duty, service tax, and VAT from July 1.